about them to offend more than one sense, and no class of men are less attentive to personal delicacy. Our Frenchmen were the most disgusting as well as the most ignorant of their profession……
The Dutch pilot who came on board, at the mouth of the Maese, gave me at first no very favourable idea of the reception we would meet with in his country. A fishing vessel belonging to him had been destroyed the preceding year by the fleet under admiral Mitchel, and his son was a prisoner in England. He was offended at an orange-coloured shawl, which ——— unfortunately wore, and he represented himself and his countrymen as the bitterest enemies of the English name. This conversation passed, it is proper to inform you, in the presence of the prize-master. The pilot had indeed suffered by the English, and his son was a prisoner; but his animosity against our nation was of the mildest kind, it was the cordiality of friendship, compared with the aversion which he expressed to the French. Speaking of the ignorance of the
